Monday, January 16, 2017

Andalusian Horses

I was at a birthday party in the back room of Ciao Baci tonight, from 5:30-7. The party girl is an OB I know through my kids.

She repeatedly introduced us to each other, when a new girl entered the room. "She's my divorce guru." I'm a divorce guru, I guess. She's turning 37 - the same age I was when I got divorced. I remember, because I put my birthdate on Match.com and that's what turned up. I was honest, which is more that I can say for this one guy I met, who was about ten years beyond his stated age.

We had lunch at Pizza Cafe. He was obviously hung up on his ex. She raised Andalusian horses. He was a bronze Olympian medalist, swimming I think, in a former life. Now he was IT, working on his Master's degree. He had Allport's syndrome, so was very hard of hearing and had kidney issues. Was also sterile, so when his wife got pregnant, the marriage was over.

We had a few phone calls after the lunch, but things fizzled quickly. Once there was a tornado alarm and I was sheltering under the stairs. We talked. He was also hung up on another ex-girlfriend - a single mom with two girls. He had once rescued them from a tree falling on their house - he liked to tell the story. He seemed to want me to be afraid, and to want to be rescued.

"Aren't you scared? There's a tornado alarm. Do you need me to come over?"

"No, I'm not scared. I'm fine. If you need someone to rescue, you are knocking on the wrong door. Go back to your ex-girlfriend. It was nice talking to you."

I sat in between a beautiful ENT to my left and my friend's OB partner to my right. The OB announced, midway through cocktails and appetizers, "Just look at all the talent in this room. There is unlimited potential here. OB, psychologists, ENT, yoga instructors, cRNA's, we can get anything done with the people collected in this room. This is power!"